AV Channel

The AV Channel is the place to find videos and podcasts.

The CSIRO Staff Association and the ACTU spent a day with scientists at Aspendale’s Marine and Atmospheric Science research centre, speaking to them about climate change. View the video of the panel here, and find out their answers to the top five questions we regulalry get asked about climate change.

“I want to be a college professor…” This humorous video is about getting a PhD in humanities but there is much scientists may relate to, says Dr Tom Dixon, the CSIRO Staff Association’s postdoc coordinator (4.30 mins).

Hail Julius! Enjoy this clip of Professor Julius Sumner Miller demonstrating the finer points of liquid nitrogen in a Masterchef-style science kitchen. The engaging Professor helped stimulate many older Australian’s interest in science, back in the days when there was only one kind of milk – full cream – and OHS rules were a little more relaxed.

A new animation illustrating how gold behaves at the nanoscale. The animation has been designed as a communication tool for secondary school curriculums to use the example of gold to illustrate how bulk properties change at the nanoscale. The National Enabling Technologies Strategy (NETS-PACE) has been expanding the reach of the national nanotechnology secondary school resources at AccessNano. The start of the animation is also a good general introduction to the nanoscale for broader audiences.

In many parts of the world citizens do not have accurate maps of their communities and lack access to original satellite data. Grassroots Mapping involves balloons, kites and other simple tools for citizens to produce their own imagery, which they then own. Jeffrey Warren from MIT Media Lab’s Design Ecology Group talks about a grassroots mapping project in Peru funded by the MIT Legatum Center 2010 to deploy the mapping tools to youth in a settlement outside Lima.

These days a weather balloon, some polystyrene, an iPhone and a video camera are all you need to launch a homemade spacecraft into orbit – and record the journey. By housing the camera in a polystyrene box and attaching it to a weather balloon, the craft rises until a lack of atmospheric pressure causes the balloon to burst, deploying a parachute (the moment is recorded in the video), sending the box and camera back to Earth. Amazingly, the amateur spacecraft landed in a tree just 30 miles from where it was launched.